Joplin Updates & Release Notes

Improvements across desktop and mobile

A real table editor in the Markdown editor

Editing Markdown tables has always been the least pleasant part of writing in plain text. Joplin 3.7 adds an interactive table editor to the Markdown editor, with a context menu to add and delete rows and columns.

Because the editor is shared between platforms, this is available on mobile as well.

More reliable syncing

Syncing is faster and safer this cycle. Deleting a lot of notes at once on Joplin Server and Joplin Cloud no longer takes as long, and if you happen to be typing in a note just as it's being updated from another device, your changes are no longer at risk of being overwritten.

Faster startup

Joplin no longer processes plugin files that don't need processing at startup, which noticeably reduces launch time for users with several plugins installed.

Desktop-specific improvements

AI features (Beta)

The headline addition of this release is a set of AI features built into the app.

The chat panel sits alongside the current note and can answer questions about it, summarise it, or make edits to it on your behalf, as well as read images in your notes.

To use the AI features you need a provider, and this release introduces Joplin Cloud AI to make that as simple as possible. If you already sync with Joplin Cloud, you can simply turn it on and start using the chat panel right away - there's no API key to obtain, and nothing to configure.

If you would rather use your own provider, that remains possible: the chat panel also works with your own OpenAI or Anthropic key. It can equally be pointed at a local model running on your own machine, in which case your notes never leave your computer at all.

Semantic search is now available in the sidebar and in Go To Anything. Unlike the regular search, it matches on meaning rather than exact words, so a search for "holiday plans" can surface a note titled "Trip to Portugal".

This is powered by a new note embeddings indexer, which runs in the background and indexes both note titles and content.

Finally, all of this is available to plugin authors too. Plugins can now hold conversations with a model, run semantic searches, and work with the note index directly - which opens the door to a whole new class of plugins, from automatic tagging and summarising to tools that surface related notes as you write.

All the AI features are marked as Beta: they work, but they are new, and we expect to refine them based on how people actually use them.

MCP server

Joplin now includes an MCP server, which means external AI tools and assistants can read from and write to your notes through a standard protocol. If you already use an MCP-capable app such as Claude, it can now work directly with your Joplin data.

Whiteboards

A brand new feature on desktop: whiteboards let you arrange notes, files and free-form cards on an infinite canvas, and connect them with labelled arrows.

Notebooks and tags are good at filing things away, but they say little about how your notes relate to one another. A whiteboard gives you that missing view: you can map out a project, plan a piece of writing, or lay out the pieces of a problem and see the connections between them at a glance.

Cards and groups can be coloured, and files can be dragged and dropped straight onto the canvas.

Importing from other apps

Joplin 3.7 adds support for importing an Obsidian vault, on both desktop and the CLI, making it straightforward to move over from Obsidian while keeping your notes and their structure.

The Evernote importer now resolves cross-notebook links in many cases where they were previously lost.

The OneNote importer also received another round of fixes, in particular around note order, printouts and handwriting.

Publishing and sharing

Joplin Cloud users could already publish a note to the internet as a public page. It is now possible to publish a whole notebook at once.

The notes are published together, with their links between each other preserved, which effectively turns a notebook into a small website: a piece of documentation, a recipe collection, a set of course notes, or anything else you want to share as a whole rather than one page at a time. Anyone with the link can read it, and it stays up to date as you edit the notes in Joplin.

And when sharing a notebook, email addresses are now auto-completed, which makes sharing with the same people repeatedly much quicker.

Settings search

Joplin has accumulated a lot of settings over the years, and it is not always obvious which section holds the one you need. The configuration screen now has a search box: type what you are after, and the matching settings appear, wherever they happen to live.

Post-quantum encryption for connections

Joplin desktop now supports post-quantum cryptography (PQC) for TLS connections. This protects your synchronisation traffic against "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, where encrypted data captured today could be decrypted by a quantum computer in the future.

Easier installation on Linux

The Linux AppImage no longer depends on the deprecated libfuse2 library. On many distributions, installing Joplin used to mean first tracking down and installing that dependency by hand - it should now simply run out of the box.

Mobile-specific improvements

The interface redesign continues

The mobile redesign that started in previous releases carries on through 3.7, this time focusing on the menus you reach for constantly - creating a note, acting on one, or long-pressing a notebook. They are now easier to read at a glance, and their options are laid out more sensibly, so common actions take less hunting. The search screen has had the same treatment.

Dialogs have been tidied up too, with buttons always appearing in the same order throughout the app - a small thing, but it means you stop having to check which side "Cancel" is on before tapping.

Faster encryption

The native crypto module has been refactored, which makes encryption and decryption substantially faster on mobile. This is most noticeable when first setting up end-to-end encryption or syncing a large collection for the first time.

Notebook sort options

You can now choose how the notebook list itself is ordered, from the configuration screen: alphabetically, or by which notebook was most recently updated - and in either direction. Sorting by recent activity is particularly handy on mobile, as it keeps the notebooks you are actually working in at the top of the sidebar.

Bug fixes and security fixes

Beyond the new features, a lot of this release went into making the apps more reliable and more secure: Joplin 3.7 includes over 100 bug fixes and eight security fixes across desktop and mobile.

For the full list of changes, see the desktop changelog and the mobile changelog.

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Original source

Joplin 3.6 brings a more polished editing experience, a much improved OneNote importer, and a clearer view of what's happening when the app syncs. Mobile also gains a number of features that previously were only available on desktop.

Improvements across desktop and mobile

A more visual Markdown editor

The Markdown editor now renders formatting directly in the editor by default, which means headings, bold and italic text, links, images and other elements now appear styled as you type, instead of as raw Markdown. This brings the editing experience much closer to the final rendered note, while keeping all the speed and predictability of plain Markdown.

In addition, inline HTML such as colored text, superscript, subscript and strikethrough is now rendered live, and YAML frontmatter blocks are displayed as a clean styled block rather than raw text. Code block highlighting in the editor has also been brought closer to what you see in the viewer.

Markdown formatting commands such as bold or italic now also apply correctly across multi-line selections, formatting each line individually rather than wrapping the whole block at once.

Embedded videos and media time ranges

It is now possible to embed external content directly in notes, with YouTube videos being the most visible example - paste a link and the video plays inline.

Audio, video and PDF attachments can now also be linked to a specific section using start and end times, making it easy to point readers to a particular passage instead of the full file.

Significantly improved OneNote import

The OneNote importer received a large amount of work this cycle. Importing .onepkg files now works on Linux and macOS, not just Windows, and large .one files with many attachments are now handled correctly. Handwriting and ink import has been substantially improved, with better positioning, scaling and support for nested ink containers.

Many smaller fidelity issues have also been fixed: bold and italic now convert properly to Markdown, fonts are handled more sensibly when Calibri is unavailable, PDF printouts are imported correctly, cross-page links are preserved, and notebooks with non-ASCII characters in their titles no longer fail to import. Overall, migrating from OneNote to Joplin should now be noticeably smoother and more faithful to the original content.

Fewer unexpected sync conflicts

Several long-standing causes of unexpected conflicts have been addressed, including conflicts that could appear during sync, after a full sync, or due to resource duplication. Resource processing in read-only shared notebooks has also been made more reliable.

Desktop-specific improvements

Clearer sync status

The sidebar now includes a sync status icon and a collapsible sync report, giving you a clear view of what Joplin is doing without having to open the log. A new toggle button also lets you hide or show the sync panel at any time. Together these changes make sync activity much more transparent in day-to-day use.

Quality of life: zoom, shortcuts and viewer copy

A number of small improvements add up to a more comfortable desktop experience:

• A full-screen shortcut (Ctrl+Cmd+F) and a global show/hide Joplin shortcut have been added.
• On Windows and Linux, a Close Window shortcut and menu item are now available.
• Toolbar button tooltips now include keyboard shortcuts.
• Copy and Select All "Edit" menu items now work in the note viewer and in read-only mode.
• The detailed note list now displays the percentage completion of checkbox lists.
• Editor settings have been moved to a dedicated section in the preferences screen, making them easier to find.

Accessible PDF export and OCR improvements

Exported PDFs now include accessibility information, and OCR'd PDFs gain a text layer that makes them searchable and screen-reader friendly. OCR also now supports Chinese and Norwegian.

Mobile-specific improvements

Per-notebook sorting

It is now possible to set a separate sort order for each notebook on mobile, matching the behaviour that has long been available on desktop. This is particularly useful when different notebooks need different sorting (e.g. a journal sorted by date, a reference notebook sorted alphabetically).

A dedicated attachments management screen

A new screen lists all attachments across your notes, making it much easier to review what's stored, find a specific file, or delete attachments you no longer need. It's available from Configuration → Tools → Note attachments.

A more capable editor toolbar

Two improvements make the mobile editor toolbar more flexible:

• New "Go to start of note" and "Go to end of note" buttons make navigating long notes much faster.
• The toolbar buttons can now be reordered using up/down arrows, so you can put the actions you use most within easy reach.

Other mobile improvements

A few additional changes worth mentioning:

• Joplin now remembers whether you were viewing or editing each note, instead of always reopening in view mode.
• A new "Reveal in notebook" option helps you locate a note in the sidebar from a search result or any other view.
• Plain text .txt files can now be imported directly on mobile.

Bug fixes and security fixes across platforms

Joplin 3.6 also includes a large number of bug fixes across desktop and mobile, addressing issues in editing, syncing, importing, rendering and general stability. Several security-related improvements have also been made, including a stronger Content Security Policy on desktop.

For the full list of changes, see the desktop changelog and the mobile changelog.

Discuss on the forum

Original source

Improvements across desktop and mobile

More stable and consistent Markdown editing

The Markdown editor has been refined to feel more stable and closer to the final rendered view. Headings in the editor now more closely match how they appear when viewing a note, reducing the visual jump between editing and reading. Layout issues have also been addressed so elements like rendered checkboxes and images no longer cause the editor to shift unexpectedly while typing.

The ABC music notation plugin appeared to be popular but had some limitations. With this new version, ABC is now part of the app, which means it can now work from published notes, and from the Rich Text editor!

Smoother switching between notes

Switching between notes is now less disruptive. Joplin restores cursor position and scroll location more reliably, making it easier to move back and forth between notes—especially when working with longer documents or comparing content—without losing your place.

Case insensitive tags

Tags are now treated in a case-insensitive way, which helps prevent duplicate tags caused by differences in capitalisation, while still allowing mixed-case tag names. All this time we were hoping that @dpoulton would just get used to lowercase tags, but 5 years later it looks like it's not happening ;) So thank you @mrjo118 for implementing it!

More reliable syncing and sharing

Syncing and sharing have been made more robust in everyday use. Joplin now handles repeated syncs more efficiently, avoids unnecessary data usage, and is better at detecting and syncing all changes, particularly when using WebDAV and S3 sync targets.

Moreover filesystem synchronisation is now more reliable, in particular when used alongside tools like SyncThing on both mobile and desktop.

Accessibility and readability improvements

Accessibility has seen further refinements in this release. Dark mode readability has been improved, common editor elements are clearer, and animations are reduced or disabled when system “reduce motion” settings are enabled, making the app more comfortable to use for a wider range of users. Keyboard navigation has also been improved on the desktop application.

Desktop-specific improvements

Easier profile management

Managing multiple profiles on desktop is now simpler thanks to a new, more user-friendly profile management interface. This removes the need to manually edit configuration files and makes switching between different setups easier and safer.

Significantly improved OneNote import

Importing content from OneNote is now more reliable and accurate. Support has been expanded to cover more OneNote file formats, and many edge cases have been addressed so imported notes more closely match their original structure and content. This makes migrating from OneNote to Joplin smoother and more trustworthy.

Better tools for organising large note collections

Desktop users can now select multiple notebooks at once, making it easier to reorganise notebook structures, move groups of notes, or clean up larger collections without working notebook by notebook.

Polished editing experience on desktop

Both the Markdown and Rich Text editors have been further refined. Cursor behaviour is more predictable, visual consistency between editing and viewing has improved, and several layout and rendering issues have been fixed to reduce interruptions while writing.

More reliable search and navigation

Search and navigation on desktop have been improved with fixes that ensure search results behave consistently and remain visible when moving between windows or views.

Improved math support in WebClipper

The WebClipper is not forgotten in this release - clipping certain math formulas, in particular from Wikipedia but also other websites, has been improved. Additionally, certain scientific articles are now also better handled by the WebClipper.

Mobile-specific improvements

A more powerful Rich Text Editor on mobile

The mobile Rich Text Editor continues to improve, with new and expanded support for tables, code blocks, and other structured content. These changes make it easier to create and edit more complex notes directly on mobile devices.

Easier tag management on mobile

Managing tags on mobile is now more practical. You can rename and delete tags directly from the app, and searching through tags is easier, helping keep large tag lists organised over time.

Improved stability and usability on mobile devices

Several fixes improve overall stability and usability on mobile, particularly on smaller screens. Issues causing UI elements to appear off-screen have been addressed, and the app behaves more consistently in situations that previously caused hangs or visual glitches.

Bug fixes and security fixes across platforms

A large number of stability, correctness and security fixes

Joplin 3.5 includes about 114 bug fixes across desktop and mobile, addressing issues in editing, syncing, importing, rendering, and general stability. Many fixes target edge cases that could lead to crashes, inconsistent behaviour, or rare data loss scenarios. Moreover, this version includes several vulnerability fixes to make the applications more secure.

Discuss on the forum

Original source

Joplin 3.4 includes many bug fixes and improvements, with a focus on the mobile app.

Mobile

Rich Text Editor

The mobile app now includes a beta Rich Text Editor! The new editor renders formatting/math/images within the editor:

To try it, 1) open a note in the default Markdown editor 2) open the note actions menu (the three vertical dots) for the note and 3) click “Edit as Rich Text”.

Be aware that this editor is still in active development and has a number of known limitations and issues. The Rich Text editor is based on ProseMirror and will behave differently from the desktop Rich Text Editor in many cases.

Support for publishing notes with Joplin Cloud and Server

It's now possible to publish notes from the mobile app! To do so, open the “Properties” menu for a note, then click “Publish/unpublish”:

Next, in the “publish note” dialog, click “Copy shareable link”. Notes can later be unpublished by clicking "Unpublish" in the publication dialog.

Viewing note history

It is now possible to view and restore previous note versions from the mobile app. Like the "publish note" feature, previous note versions can be accessed from the note properties menu.

As on desktop, the note history feature can be configured from the “Note History” tab in settings.

Updated tag dialog

The tag dialog has been redesigned, with a new UI for adding, removing, and creating new tags:

Android: Improved voice typing

The voice typing feature on Android has been updated with improved silence detection and a new “custom glossary” setting. Voice typing also now defaults to a more accurate (but somewhat slower) model.

Quickly creating a note from multiple photos

A “scan notebook” action has been added to the “New note” menu:

This action allows quickly creating a new note with multiple pictures taken from the camera.

Desktop

More Markdown Editor settings

The "Note" tab in settings now includes new settings for the Markdown editor, including:

An option to render headers, lists, and certain other formatting within the editor.

An option to render images in the editor.

When enabled, these settings bring the Markdown editor closer to the Rich Text Editor, without some of the Rich Text Editor's limitations.

These settings are also available on mobile.

Smaller application size and faster startup

We've made the desktop application roughly 33% smaller! In addition to faster application startup, this means that the desktop app should be faster to download take up less space.

Joplin version
Previous size (v3.3.13)
New size (v3.4.12)

Joplin for MacOS (ARM)
211 MB
141 MB

Joplin for Windows (installer)
321 MB
219 MB

Joplin for Windows (portable)
320 MB
219 MB

Joplin for Linux (AppImage)
219 MB
147 MB

Terminal app

Collapsible folders

The terminal application now supports expanding and collapsing folders by pressing z. For additional information, see the original pull request.

Managing shared notebooks and published notes

New commands have been added to the terminal app, including publish, unpublish, and share. This allows the terminal app to manage shared folders and published notes.

Bug fixes

For the full list of changes, see the desktop changelog and the mobile changelog.

Discuss on the forum

Original source

Desktop application

Accessibility improvements

The Joplin 3.3 release introduces significant accessibility enhancements designed to make the application more inclusive and user-friendly. Users can now benefit from improved keyboard navigation, thanks to newly added shortcuts and clearer labels that streamline interaction across the interface. We've also added a "go to viewer" menu item that moves focus from the note editor to the note viewer. Focus is moved to the location in the viewer corresponding to the location of the cursor in the editor.

Screen reader support has been bolstered, ensuring elements like the note list and sidebar are easier to toggle and interact with. These updates make the application more usable for individuals relying on assistive technologies.

Additionally, visual improvements, including increased contrast for UI components such as URLs, sidebars, and scrollbars, enhance readability for users with visual impairments. This focus on clarity ensures a more comfortable user experience.

The Rich Text Editor has also received accessibility-focused updates, allowing for more seamless interaction with code blocks using either a keyboard or touchscreen. These refinements highlight Joplin's dedication to creating an accessible and equitable experience for all users.

Button to collapse and expand all notebooks

Joplin 3.3 introduces a convenient "Collapse/Expand All" button for notebooks, allowing you to quickly adjust the visibility of your notebook hierarchy. This feature simplifies navigation by letting you expand all notebooks to locate specific notes or collapse them for a tidier interface!

New dialog to select a note and link to it

A new dialog has been added to make linking to notes easier. By pressing Shift+Option+L on macOS or Shift+Alt+L on Windows and Linux, you can quickly bring up a search box. Simply type the name of the note you want to link to, and the link will be added to your current note!

Support for multiple instances of Joplin

Joplin Desktop now lets you run multiple instances at once! This means you can easily separate your work and personal notes, or use Joplin across different virtual desktops. Each instance runs independently with its own settings, plugins, and notes, so nothing overlaps. You can open a second instance through in menu File => Open secondary app instance..., and customise it however you like!

Improved Rich Text editor

This version includes multiple improvements and bug fixes to the Rich Text Editor. In particular it has now been upgraded to TinyMCE v6, and it adds support for Markdown auto-replacement. For example, typing ==highlight== creates highlighted text. Auto-replacement can be disabled in settings.

Mobile application

Accessibility improvements

Like the desktop app, the mobile app includes several accessibility improvements designed to enhance the user experience for those relying on assistive technologies. Focus handling has been improved in the note actions menu and modal dialogs, ensuring smoother navigation for screen reader users. Additionally, the default modal close button is now accessible, and issues with invisible buttons being focusable have been resolved.

Other updates include better contrast for faded URLs in the Markdown editor, making them more readable for users with visual impairments. The encryption configuration screen has been improved for better accessibility, and screen reader support has been added for creating and editing profiles. These changes collectively improve navigation, readability, and usability for all users.

Support attaching audio recordings

You can now easily capture and include audio recordings directly within your notes. To use this feature, open the kebab menu and select "Record audio." You can then to record your audio input. When finished, the app automatically attaches the recorded audio file to the note. This functionality is perfect for capturing ideas, reminders, or supplementary audio information in a quick and intuitive way.

Improved voice typing feature

The voice typing feature in Android has undergone a significant improvement, making it more accurate. Previously introduced in version 2.11, the feature allowed you to transcribe speech into text but lacked punctuation and struggled with accuracy in certain scenarios. The revamped version now leverages Whisper, an advanced AI model, to deliver improved recognition, including automatic punctuation and paragraph formatting.

Despite its advancements, the feature is currently in beta due to the demanding nature of the required AI models. While it defaults to a smaller, less accurate model to accommodate older devices, you can manually download and switch to more accurate models for better performance.

As previously, the feature remains entirely offline, ensuring that private recordings are never sent to third-party servers, a distinct privacy advantage over similar solutions from Google or Apple. Additionally it means you can use the feature even when you don't have an internet connection. We plan to refine this feature further, eventually defaulting to the more accurate model as stability improves.

Improved new note menu

The redesigned "New Note" menu takes note creation to a whole new level of flexibility and convenience. Previously, this menu only offered options to create a new note or a new to-do. With the latest update, you now have quick access to a variety of shortcuts, enabling you to attach files, record audio, capture photo notes, or even create drawings directly from the menu. This intuitive redesign makes it easier to choose the format that best suits your needs.

Security and bug fixes

As always, we continue to reinforce the security of Joplin. This version implements a robust content security policy for the Rich Text Editor, safeguarding the application against malicious content.

In total, this version delivers 39 bug fixes on desktop and 17 on mobile, enhancing both the security and stability of the application.

Full changelogs

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelogs are available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android/

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios/

Discuss on the forum

Original source

Import OneNote Archives

Joplin now supports importing OneNote archives, a significant step for users transitioning from OneNote. Microsoft has long made it challenging to leave OneNote, offering limited export options and complex formats that make it difficult for app developers to support it. Despite these hurdles, @pedr tackled these issues head-on, developing an import tool that simplifies the process. This addition makes Joplin a practical choice for those looking to move away from OneNote's ecosystem.

To use this feature, select File => Import => ZIP - OneNote Notebook

Multi-window support

We're excited to introduce Multi-Window Support, a highly requested feature that makes managing multiple notes easier than ever. With this update, you can open notes in different windows and each window operates independently, allowing you to compare notes, reference content, and organise projects with greater flexibility.

To use this feature, right-click on a note, select Open in... and select Edit in new window

Customisable toolbar on mobile

The new customisable toolbar on mobile is now draggable, making it easier to access the buttons you need. You can also choose which buttons to display by tapping the Cog button, allowing for a more personalised and efficient note-editing experience!

Enhanced Accessibility

In order to implement the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, accessibility has seen a substantial upgrade thanks to the efforts of @personalizedrefrigerator. The desktop and mobile apps now offer better keyboard navigation, including improved functionality in dropdown menus and settings. Focus indicators have been made more visible, while ARIA labels have been added to boost compatibility with screen readers. Specific areas like note attachments, sidebars, and dialogs have also been optimised to ensure accessibility for all users.

Refined Drawing and Markdown Editing

Joplin's drawing and editing features have been fine-tuned for a smoother experience. Freehand Drawing on mobile and desktop has been updated to version 2.14.0, addressing several usability issues and bugs. Additionally, the Freehand Drawing plugin is now part of the desktop app by default. These changes enhance the reliability and integration of the drawing tool.

Faster and more secure encryption

For GSoC 2024, @wh201906 worked on optimising the encryption and decryption processes, boosting speed for mobile devices in particular (but desktop too). Additionally, the encryption security was improved by transitioning to a more robust 256-bit key.

As of now this feature is optional and can be enabled by going to the Configuration Screen, then Synchronisation => Advanced options => Use beta encryption.

Expanded Plugin Support

Developers will appreciate the updates to Joplin's plugin ecosystem. A new API has been introduced to create toast notifications, alongside updates to CodeMirror packages. A new renderMarkup command has been introduced to allow you to render Markdown content to HTML using the Joplin built-in API.

Full changelogs

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelogs are available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android/

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios/

Discuss on the forum

Original source

Desktop application

Trash folder

Joplin now support a trash folder - any deleted notes or notebooks will be moved to that folder. You can also choose to have these notes permanently deleted after a number of days.

Support for the trash folder has a somewhat long history in Joplin since it's an obvious and important feature to add, yet it can be particularly tricky once you start realising how many parts of the app it's going to impact.

Many attempts have been made over time: my first attempt was based on the note history feature. Indeed since this feature already saves versions of notes, it seems to make sense to use it for the trash feature, and indeed the note history feature was designed for this originally. However that approach turned to be needlessly complicated and after modifying hundreds of files just for this, the idea was dropped.

The next one was based on using a special "trash" tag - deleted notes would have this tag attached to them and would appear in a special "trash" folder. This approach also had many issues probably the main one being that notebooks can't be tagged, which means we would have to add support for tagged notebooks and that in itself would also be a massive change.

Various, ideas, were also attempted using plugins, by creating a special "trash folder", but in the end no such plugin was ever created, probably due to limitations of the plugin API.

In the end, turned out that this old idea of adding a "deleted" property to each note and notebook was the easiest approach. With this it was simpler to get to a working solution relatively quickly, and then it was a matter of ensuring that deleted notes don't appear where they shouldn't, such as search results, etc.

Joplin Cloud multi-factor authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA), also known as two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security process that requires you to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a system or account. It typically includes something you know (password), something you have (security token), and something you are (biometric verification).

To better secure your account, Joplin Cloud and all Joplin applications now support MFA. To enable it, go to your Joplin Cloud profile, click on "Enable multi-factor authentication" and follow the instructions. Please note that all your applications will then be disconnected, so you will need to login again (your data of course will remain on the app so you won't have to download it again).

Note list with multiple columns

In this release we add support for multiple columns in the note list. You can display various properties of the notes, as well as sort the notes by these properties. As usual this feature can be controlled and customised by plugins so for example it should be possible to display custom columns, and display custom information including thumbnails.

Plugin API enhancement

The plugin API has received several updates to facilitate easy customisation of the app As mentioned above, it is now possible to customise the new note list. Besides this, we've added support for loading PDFs and creating images from them, which can for example be used to create thumbnails.

Many other small enhancements have been made to the plugin API to help you tailor the app to your needs!

View OCR data

Now when you right-click on an image or PDF you have an option to view the OCR (Optical character recognition) data associated with it. That will allow you for example to easily copy and paste the text.

Plugin support on mobile

As always, most of the above changes also apply to mobile (iOS and Android), for example the trash folder and MFA support.

Additionally the mobile application now adds support for plugins. To enable the feature, go to the settings then to the "Plugins" section. The feature is currently in Beta, in particular it means that some plugins do not work or only partially work. Normally the app should not offer you to install a non-working plugin but that may still happen. In general if you notice any issue with this beta feature please let me us know as we're keen to improve it.

Support for cross-platform plugins in Joplin is great news as it means a lot of new features become available on mobile. As of now, we have checked the following plugins and can confirm that they work on mobile:

• Quick Links
• Inline Tags
• CodeMirror 6 settings
• Function plot
• Space indenter
• Inline Tag Navigator

Those are just some examples - many more are working!

Full changelogs

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelogs are available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android/

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios/

Discuss on the forum

Original source

OCR

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Joplin enables the transformation of text-containing images into machine-readable text formats. From this version you can enable OCR in the Configuration screen under the "General" section. Once activated, Joplin scans images and PDFs, extracting text data for searchability.

While OCR search is available on both desktop and mobile apps, document scanning is limited to the desktop due to resource demands. For more information head to the OCR official documentation!

Bundled plugins

Joplin will now bundle high quality plugins that we feel will benefit most users. With this version we include the great Backup plugin by JackGruber. This will provide another layer of safety when using Joplin as by default it will automatically backup your notes in a "JoplinBackup" folder in your home directory.

Note that, just like any other plugin, you can change the plugin configuration or even disable it from the settings.

ENEX importer

As usual in recent version, there are plenty of improvements to the Joplin ENEX importer. Besides the various fixes and enhancement to support this format, we've added a few useful features:

Restore note links after importing an ENEX file

Evernote Export files do not include the necessary information to reliably restore the links between notes, so for a long time this feature was not supported by the importer.

Now however Joplin will try to guess what note is linked to what other note based on the note title, which in many cases will give the expected result. But not always - when that happens, and Joplin cannot detect the link target, the application leaves the original Evernote link. That way you can manually restore it yourself or at least find back what the note was linked to.

Import a directory of ENEX files

It is notoriously difficult to export data from Evernote because, among other issues, you can only export one notebook at a time, which is an obvious problems when you have dozens of notebooks. Unfortunately we cannot improve this part of the process since this up to Evernote, however we now make it easier to import all these notebook files by adding support for importing a folder of ENEX files. To use this feature, go to File > Import, and select one of the "ENEX (Directory)" options.

This will process all the ENEX files in that directory and create a notebook in Joplin for each of them.

Beta Markdown editor

This version features further improvements to the new Markdown editor based on CodeMirror 6. The goal eventually is to be able to use the same editor on both the desktop and mobile application (which already uses CodeMirror 6), which will allow a more consistent user experience across devices.

Plugin support has also been improved in this version - plugin authors can now write native CodeMirror 6 extensions using the plugin API. For more information check the documentation on how to create a Markdown plugin!

Another benefit of this new editor is that, in a future version, it will allow us to support plugins on the mobile application since a plugin written for the desktop app will work on mobile too. There are several other advantages that Henry listed in this forum post.

Rich text editor improvements

We continue making improvements to the Rich Text Editor (RTE) in particular to improve interoperability with other applications, such as LibreOffice, Office or web browsers, as well as better handling of copy and paste.

Another notable addition is support for setting colours, which was a frequently asked feature. To use the feature, select it from the "..." button in the toolbar. Note that once applied the colours will work in the Markdown editor too!

See below for the full list of RTE changes:

• Fixed: Rich text editor: Fix context menu not shown in some cases
• Improved: Speed up pasting text and images in Rich Text Editor
• Fixed: Fix drag-and-drop of images and text in the rich text editor
• Fixed: Fix images with SVG data URLs corrupted in the rich text editor
• Fixed: Pasting rich text in the RTE sometimes result in invalid markup
• Fixed: Rich text editor: Fix newline behavior in new notes
• Improved: Add support for changing text colors in rich text editor
• Fixed: Fix HTML resource links lost when editing notes in the rich text editor
• Fixed: Fix code blocks with blank lines break tables in the rich text editor
• Fixed: Copied and pasted text from Firefox to RTE does not include images
• Fixed: Pasting rich text in the RTE sometimes result in invalid markup
• Fixed: Fixed copying and pasting an image from Chrome in RTE

Full changelog

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelog is available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android/

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios/

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Original source

The plugin manifest now supports new properties to better describe and present your plugins on Joplin Plugins website. Those are the icons, categories, screenshots and promo_tile properties.

Icon

This is the icon that will be used in various plugin pages, including in your main plugin page. It will be shown on the main result page too. If not provided, a default icon will be displayed instead.

Category

You can supply one or more category for your plugin - it will be used to filter the plugins on the website.

Screenshots

Again you can provide one or more screenshots to present your plugin on the website.

An example of plugin with icon, category and screenshot

Promo tile

The promo tile is an optional image that is used to display your plugin on the main website page. If no promo tile is supplied, the icon will be used instead.

An example of promo tile

More information

For more information on how to set this plugin metadata, please check the Plugin Manifest documentation

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The next version of Joplin Cloud (and Joplin Server) will include a change that will make synchronisation, in particular when synchronising a new device for the first time, significantly faster. This is achieved by bundling more data with the calls that retrieve notes and other data, thus reducing the number of unnecessary requests.

This change will be applied soon to Joplin Cloud (and Server), and the Joplin mobile, desktop and CLI applications will be able to use it from version 2.14.

In my tests with about 26,000 items, synchronisation was more than twice as fast on Joplin Cloud (22.5 minutes vs 9.5 minutes):

Before

Created local items: 21814. Fetched items: 26591/26591. Completed: 23/12/2023 10:38 (1346s)

real 22m35.810s
user 3m19.182s
sys 1m24.207s

Optimised

Created local items: 21822. Fetched items: 26600/26600. Completed: 23/12/2023 11:48 (571s)

real 9m38.932s
user 1m10.119s
sys 0m38.013s

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Desktop

Rich Text Editor improvements

In this update, significant enhancements have been implemented in the Rich Text Editor to enhance user experience. One notable improvement is the ability to seamlessly embed various content within tables, including lists and other tables, which was a frequently requested feature:

The interoperability with other text editors such as Word and Excel has also been improved, in particular when copying and pasting content between these tools and Joplin.

Improved ENEX import

The Evernote Export format, known as ENEX, has always been challenging to support. This is because Evernote frequently changes it, breaking importers, and may also occasionally introduce bugs. At times, their own application struggles to import back files that it has exported, highlighting the volatility of the ENEX format.

After undergoing continuous improvements for seven years, the importer has achieved a relatively stable state. The majority of issues encountered now stem from invalid files generated by Evernote, a result of bugs introduced in recent versions. Despite these challenges, we strive to enhance the import process by employing various heuristics to process the invalid data as effectively as possible.

The list of bug fixes is below:

• Apply correct size to images imported from ENEX files
• ENEX files that contain resources with invalid mime types are imported correctly
• Ensure that ENEX resources with invalid filenames are imported correctly
• Prevent application from being stuck when importing an invalid ENEX file

New plugins APIs

Note list

We are continuously improving the plugin API to make it as easy as possible to customize the application.

One of the main addition is support note list plugins - it allows any plugins to customise what the list should display each note.

See the Joplin Plugin Note List API and the Note List Demo for more information.

The demo includes three examples of note lists: a fundamental "top to bottom" version, a sophisticated "left to right" variant that additionally displays a note thumbnail, and a demonstration of an interactive note list, allowing direct modification of the note title from the list.

This API was developed based on the feedback we got and we hope it will be useful. We remain open to further input from users and plugin developers regarding any potential missing features and areas for improvement!

Imaging API

The imaging API was created to allow plugin developers to easily load and manipulate images. For now it is possible to load PNG and JPG files, and to resize and crop them.

https://joplinapp.org/api/references/plugin_api/classes/joplinimaging.html

And more

A few more APIs have been added such as one to open dialog to select a file or folder and a way to access the plugin settings from a renderer script.

New beta Markdown editor

This version also features a new Markdown editor based on CodeMirror 6. This change means that we'll be able to use the same editor on both the desktop and mobile application (which already uses CodeMirror 6), which will allow a more consistent user experience across devices.

Another benefit is that, in a future version, it will allow us to support plugins on the mobile application. There are several other advantages that Henry listed in this forum post.

Mobile

Drawing option

In this new version, Henry integrated the js-draw editor to the mobile app. Js-draw is a powerful freehand drawing library which allows you to draw using a pen, touch screen or mouse.

The editor is integrated to the mobile application. On desktop application, you can use the same library and edit your drawings using the Freehand Drawing plugin. We will make this plugin available by default in a future desktop release.

Setting screen

The mobile version also features a redesigned configuration screen. It is now divided into multiple sections with clear titles, and you can also search for settings using the built-in search option.

Full changelog

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelog is available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android/

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios/

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Original source

Great news! Joplin 2.10 is here and we've made some amazing improvements and bug fixes, with a focus on the mobile app.

New design for "New note" and "New to-do" buttons

We're excited to announce that we've made it even easier to create new notes and to-do lists with new designs for the "New note" and "New to-do" buttons.

If there is enough space, the button labels will be shown in full:

While for those who prefer a more narrow note list, only the button icons will be shown:

It's a small improvement, but we're confident it will make the app even more intuitive for new users.

Fixes and improvements

This version includes 30 bug fixes and 16 general improvements. Let's dive into some of the highlights:

Self Not Found and Pedro have been working tirelessly on improving the pasting of plain text in the application, and we're happy to say that there is now a brand new "Paste as text" option in the Edit menu.

For our amazing plugin developers out there, we have added a few new APIs and fixed a bug that was preventing certain plugins from starting. You can now get even more creative with your plugins!

Tao Klerks, has been hard at work fixing and improving the custom sort order of the note list. No more notes in the wrong position when you drop them! Plus, custom sort order is now synchronised too.

We've also fixed a few bugs with our Web Clipper, including an issue where certain pages wouldn't import their images. A new Web Clipper has also been released, so you can clip to your heart's content!

Last but not least, we have modernised both the desktop and mobile application modules, just as we previously announced. Although these changes may not be visible to you, they required a lot of work! But the result is that our applications are now more stable and secure, and it will be easier to maintain them in the long run. We're using a tool called Renovate, which will automatically propose package updates that we will review. In total, we've updated a whopping 633 packages so far!

Android app is available in the Play Store

Our latest version, 2.10, is now back in the Play Store and ready for download! Although we had to skip 2.9 due to some of Google's requirements, we worked hard to ensure that our app complies with their standards, and we are excited to announce that we are back and better than ever! Our iOS version is also available, so you can continue to enjoy the app regardless of the platform you use.

Biometrics support

To make your experience even more secure, our Android and iOS apps now support biometric unlock! With just a quick scan of your fingerprint or Face ID, you can unlock your app in no time. To enable this beta feature, just head over to the settings and click on "Use biometrics to secure access to the app".

We've tested this feature thoroughly during prerelease, and have already fixed all known issues. However we still consider it as a beta feature for now, so if you run into any issues please let us know.

Support for multiple profile

We're thrilled to announce that multiple profiles are now supported in our mobile app! To create a new profile, simply go to the Configuration screen and click on "Manage profiles" under the Tools section.

From there, you can easily add or remove profiles as needed.

Once multiple profiles are setup, you will see a new option in the sidebar to quickly toggle from one profile to another:

Once you've set up multiple profiles, you can easily toggle between them using the new option in the sidebar. This feature is perfect for separating your personal and work notes into independent collections.

Support for realtime search

Our mobile app now has an improved search function that performs text searches in real time! No more waiting for the search results to load, they'll appear instantly as you type.

Improved filesystem sync performance

Thanks to the hard work of jd1378, the sync no longer freezes during filesystem synchronisation. We know how frustrating that can be, and we're thrilled to have solved this issue. Getting filesystem sync to work on Android is never easy due to the restrictions put in place by Google, especially since they frequently change, but we're committed to delivering the best possible experience for our Android users.

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Desktop

Add support for plugin user data

Developers of plugins now have the ability to associate additional information with notes, notebooks, and tags. This data is then synchronized across multiple devices. For instance, it is possible to envision attaching OCR data to an image or incorporating plugin-specific parameters to a note, which can subsequently be synchronized across all devices.

Improved end-to-end encryption

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) plays a vital role in safeguarding your data privacy. Our aim is to make it effortlessly user-friendly, seamlessly integrated, and possibly enabled by default.

To achieve this objective, we have implemented several enhancements in this version. These improvements encompass more streamlined management of encryption keys and simplified setup processes for both new and existing devices utilising end-to-end encryption.

Moreover, we have upgraded the encryption algorithm from AES-128 to AES-256, ensuring heightened security for your data in the long run.

Export a Mermaid graph

There is now a context menu on Mermaid graphs which you can use to export your graph as PNG, SVG, or by copying the vector data to the clipboard.

Auto-detect language on startup

A small but useful change - the application language is now automatically detected startup. Of course, if needed you can later change it in the configuration screen.

Android

As always most of these changes also apply to the mobile applications, such as the improved end-to-end encryption support, language auto-detection, and various bug fixes and improvements. But besides those, we also have several mobile-specific updates:

Support for offline voice typing

The Android mobile app now support offline voice typing - it means your voice recording does not need to be uploaded to Google or Samsung server - it all takes place on your device for added security. To make use of it, open any note, tap on the three dots menu, then "Voice typing".

The first time, the app will need to download the language files to your device:

Once they are there, simply record your message and it will appear in the note:

Create and move sub-notebooks

@jcgurango implemented support for creating sub-notebooks, and moving notebooks around in the mobile app. To do so, long press on any notebook and press "Edit". You can now choose to move it under any other notebook using the provided dropdown list.

Full changelog

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelog is available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios

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Desktop

Support for Apple Silicon

A new release is now available for Apple Silicon, which provides improve performances on this architecture.

Rich Text editor

In this release, we've undertaken numerous enhancements and addressed various bugs in the Rich Text editor. Notably, we've introduced support for plugin toolbar icons. Additionally, we've refined the editor's ability to manage text that's copied from applications like Word, Office, and LibreOffice, thereby enhancing cross-application compatibility. Among the minor yet impactful improvements, we've fine-tuned the handling of newlines and paragraphs—a highly requested feature. Another notable update is the improved automatic switching between light and dark modes.

Altogether, this release encompasses around 12 significant changes for the Rich Text editor, and rest assured, there's more to come in the future!

Share permissions

Using Joplin Cloud Teams, you now have the ability to customize the read and write permissions for the notebooks you share. You have the option to grant other users permission to edit the notes or share them as read-only. This ensures that you can confidently share a notebook without worrying about unintentional modifications by your friends or colleagues.

Email to Note

Joplin Cloud Pro and Teams also now include the Email to Note feature, allowing you to conveniently store your emails within Joplin Cloud. By simply forwarding your emails to your Joplin Cloud address, you can transform them into notes. The email's subject will serve as the note title, while the body of the email will be the note's content. These notes will be organized within a notebook named "Inbox."

More information in the Email to Note documentation.

Choose to resize an image or not

By default, when you add a large image, Joplin will ask you if you would like to shrink it down or not. With this new release, you now have the option to always ask, to always resize, or to never resize the image, giving you more flexibility and reducing the number of prompts in the app.

Rotating log

Up until now, the logs could grow to become very large, and if you wanted to shrink them down you would have to manually delete them. With this new release, we now automatically handle logs by rotating them - once the log becomes large enough it is moved to an archive. And once the archive is older than a number of days, it is deleted.

Mobile

Like the desktop app, the mobile apps benefits from the Share Permissions update, as well as the Email to Note feature for Joplin Cloud. There are also plenty of other improvements - all in all there's 23 bug fixes, enhancements and security fixes in this release.

Full changelog

This is just an overview of the main features. The full changelog is available there:

Desktop: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/desktop

Android: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/android

iOS: https://joplinapp.org/help/about/changelog/ios

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Proxy support

Both the desktop and mobile application now support proxies thanks to the work of Jason Williams. This will allow you to use the apps in particular when you are behind a company proxy.

New PDF viewer

The desktop application now features a new PDF viewer thanks to the work of Asrient during GSoC.

The main advantage for now is that this viewer preserves the last PDF page that was read. In the next version, the viewer will also include a way to annotate PDF files.

Multi-language spell checking

The desktop app include a multi-language spell checking features, which allows you, for example, to spell-check notes in your native language and in English.

New mobile text editor

Writing formatted notes on mobile has always been cumbersome due to the need to enter special format characters like * or [, etc.

Thanks to the work of Henry Heino during GSoC, writing notes on the go is now easier thanks to an improved Markdown editor.

The most visible feature is the addition of a toolbar, which helps input those special characters, like on desktop.

Moreover Henry made a lot of subtle but useful improvements to the editor, for example to improve the note appearance, to improve list continuation, etc. Search within a note is now also supported as well as spell-checking.

At a more technical level, Henry also added many test units to ensure that the editor remains robust and reliable.

To enable the feature, go to the configuration screen and selected "Opt-in to the editor beta". It is already very stable so we will probably promote it to be the main editor from the next version.

Improved alignment of notebook icons

Previously, when you would assign an icon to a notebook, it would shift the title to the right, but notebook without an icon would not. It means that notebooks with and without an icon would not be vertically aligned.

To tidy things up, this new version adds a default icons to notebooks without an explicitly assigned icon. This result in the notebook titles being correctly vertically aligned.

Note that this feature is only enabled if you use custom icons - otherwise it will simply display the notebook titles without any default icons, as before.

Improved handling of file attachments

Self Not Found made a number of small but useful improvements to attachment handling, including increasing the maximum size to 200MB, adding support for attaching multiple files, and fixing issues with synchronising attachments via proxy.

Fixed filesystem sync on mobile

This was a long and complex change due to the need to support new Android APIs but hopefully that should now be working again, thanks to the work of jd1378.

So you can now sync again your notes with Syncthing and other file-based synchronisation systems.

And more...

In total this new desktop version includes 36 improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes.

As always, a lot of work went into the Android and iOS app too, which include 37 improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes.

See here for the changelogs:

Desktop app changelog

Android app changelog

About the Android version

Unfortunately we cannot publish the Android version because it is based on a framework version that Google does not accept. To upgrade the app a lot of changes are needed and another round of pre-releases, and therefore there will not be a 2.9 version for Google Play. You may however download the official APK directly from there: Android 2.9 Official Release

This is the reality of app stores in general - small developers being imposed never ending new requirements by all-powerful companies, and by the time a version is finally ready we can't even publish it because yet more requirements are in place.

For the record the current 2.9 app works perfectly fine. It targets Android 11, which is only 2 years old and is still supported (and installed on millions of phones). Google requires us to target Android 12 which only came out last year.

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